Manifesto for Philosophy Translated, edited and with an Introduction by Norman Madarasz

"...An excellent introduction to the work of one of the most important philosophers writing today, Manifesto for Philosophy will undoubtedly quicken the discourse that has become too comfortable with its own death."--Joan Copjec, author of Read My Desire: Lacan against the Historicists

"One of the most provocatively innovative thinkers writing in French today, Alain Badiou constantly unsettles his reader by not only absorbing but also reversing and displacing the major motifs of modernist 'antiphilosophy' from Nietzsche through Derrida. In the limpid, programmatic texts presented in readable translations here, Badiou sketches his project--spelled out in his magnum opus, L'Etre et l'evenement--to reestablish systematic philosophy as a 'Platonism of the multiple,' articulated around the four conditioning discourses of science (notably the mathematics of set theory), politics (in a post-Marxist mode informed by the events of May '68), art (especially poetry from Holderlin to Celan), and love (as conceptualized by Lacan). The most significant challenge to 'antiphilosophy' in a long time, Badiou's thought promises either to displace its currently dominant forms or to deepen and refine their self-understanding. It is, in short, a force worth reckoning with." -- Jeffrey S. Librett, translator, Of the Sublime: Presence in Question

Alain Badiou is Professor of Philosophy at Universite Paris 8--"Vincennes at Saint-Denis," Saint-Denis, France. He is also Conference Director at the Colle~ge International de Philosophie in Paris. He has published extensively and his books include Theorie du sujet, Peut-on penser la politique? and Casser en duex l'histoire du monde? among others.





Table Of Contents

Introduction
Manifesto for Philosophy

1. Possibility


2. Conditions


3. Modernity


4. Heidegger Viewed as Commonplace


5. Nihilism?


6. Sutures


7. The Age of Poets


8. Events


9. Questions


10. Platonic Gesture


11. Generic


The (Re)turn of Philosophy Itself


Definition of Philosophy


Chapter Notes


Notes on the Translation


Bibliography


Contributors


Index






Related Subjects

Analytical Philosophy
Continental Philosophy
Philosophy